Restaurant in Seattle, United States
Ethan Stowell's Italian, easy to book.
Staple & Fancy Mercantile is Ethan Stowell's most ambitious Italian restaurant, ranking #429 on OAD's Casual North America list in 2025. Booking is easy by Seattle standards — one to two weeks out for weeknights — and the chef's choice dinner format is the reason to go. One of Ballard's most consistent kitchens, with a 4.6 Google rating across 751 reviews.
Staple & Fancy is easy to get into by Seattle standards, which makes it one of the more sensible calls for Italian in the city. There is no months-long waitlist, no scramble for release dates. Book a week or two out for a weeknight dinner and you should be fine. For weekend evenings, give yourself two to three weeks. The effort-to-reward ratio here is genuinely good: Opinionated About Dining has ranked it among the top 450 casual dining venues in North America in both 2024 and 2025, with a Highly Recommended nod the year before. That is a consistent, credible track record, and it argues for booking sooner rather than later if you have a date in mind.
Staple & Fancy sits on Ballard Avenue NW, in a stretch of Seattle's Ballard neighbourhood that still reads as a working commercial district rather than a polished dining destination. The building itself is a converted mercantile space, and the name reflects that: high ceilings, exposed timber, a room that feels proportioned for function rather than theatre. It is not the kind of Italian restaurant that tries to telegraph authenticity through Venetian plaster and sepia photographs. The visual language is Pacific Northwest by default, with the Italian kitchen doing the talking. For diners coming from out of town, Ballard is not a quick cab from downtown, but it rewards the trip. The neighbourhood has its own identity, and this restaurant is a meaningful part of it.
Chef Ethan Stowell built a multi-restaurant group across Seattle, but Staple & Fancy is often cited as the one that shows his range most clearly. The format is part casual trattoria, part chef's-table experience: you can order from the menu, or surrender to the kitchen's nightly chef's choice. The latter is where the OAD recognition makes most sense. Stowell's Italian cooking sits in a category distinct from the white-tablecloth end of the spectrum — this is not Café Juanita's Piedmontese formality or Spinasse's pasta-led precision. Staple & Fancy reads as looser, more market-driven, with the kind of cooking that assumes you know what you want and lets the ingredients make the case. If you are comparing Italian options in Seattle, Uncle Dom's Italian Kitchen skews more casual and neighbourhood-friendly; Staple & Fancy sits above that in ambition and consistency.
Thursday and Friday are the only days with lunch service (12:00–16:00). Dinner runs Tuesday through Saturday, with service from 18:30 to 23:45. If you are in Seattle mid-week and want a longer, more relaxed meal, the Thursday or Friday lunch window is worth knowing about. It is less common to find a kitchen of this calibre running a proper lunch mid-week, and it tends to draw a quieter, more local crowd. Dinner, by contrast, is the full experience — the room is more animated, and the chef's choice option comes into its own when the kitchen is running at pace.
Relative to the broader OAD casual North America list, a ranking in the 420s–450s places Staple & Fancy in genuinely competitive territory. For context, venues in this range sit alongside some of the more respected casual-format kitchens in the country, several tiers below destination restaurants like The French Laundry or Le Bernardin, but also operating in a different register entirely. The closer comparison in terms of format would be something like Lazy Bear in San Francisco or Smyth in Chicago , kitchens where the chef's choice format is the point, and where the cooking is confident enough to justify the surrender. For Italian specifically, the global reference class includes 8½ Otto e Mezzo Bombana in Hong Kong and cenci in Kyoto, but those comparisons are instructive for framing, not competition.
Against Seattle's best-known special-occasion restaurant, Canlis, Staple & Fancy is the easier book and the lower-stakes night out, but it is not a lesser experience , it is a different category. Canlis delivers formal New American with deep service investment; Staple & Fancy gives you an Italian kitchen at its most comfortable, with more flexibility in how the evening goes. If ceremony matters to you, Canlis wins. If you want a kitchen doing its thing without the formality tax, Staple & Fancy makes more sense.
For something more adventurous, Joule is the call , its New Asian cooking is bolder and the room has more energy. Kamonegi is the better option if soba and Japanese-influenced cooking is what you are after, and it holds its own against Staple & Fancy on quality while being even easier to book. Maneki is the neighbourhood institution if you want history and Japanese comfort food over chef-driven Italian. Walrus & Carpenter is the seafood case , if Pacific Northwest oysters and shellfish are your priority, go there instead. Staple & Fancy wins when Italian is specifically what you want and you prefer a chef's-choice format over a fixed menu.
Book dinner for your first visit and consider the chef's choice option , it is the format that reflects the kitchen's strengths most clearly. The restaurant is in Ballard, not downtown, so build in travel time. With a Google rating of 4.6 from over 750 reviews and three consecutive years on the OAD Casual North America list (most recently ranked #429 in 2025), it earns the trip. Expect a relaxed but confident Italian kitchen, not a formal dining room.
The chef's choice tasting format at dinner is the most discussed aspect of the kitchen and the format most consistent with its OAD recognition. Beyond that, the menu is Italian and market-driven, so what is on offer shifts. If you prefer control over the meal, order from the regular menu , but surrendering to the kitchen is the move that most regulars recommend.
For Italian specifically, Café Juanita is more formal and Piedmontese in focus; Spinasse is pasta-driven and more intimate. For a wider Seattle dining night out, Canlis is the splurge option and Joule is the leading alternative for chef-driven cooking in a different idiom. See the full Seattle restaurants guide for a broader view.
Dinner is the fuller experience and the one worth prioritising , the chef's choice format runs at dinner, and the room has more energy. That said, Thursday and Friday lunch (12:00–16:00) is a solid option if you are mid-week and want a quieter meal. Few kitchens at this level offer a weekday lunch, so it is worth knowing the window exists. For a first visit, book dinner.
Yes, with the right expectations. It is not a formal occasion restaurant in the way Canlis is, but the cooking is serious enough and the OAD ranking credible enough to carry a birthday dinner or a date night. The chef's choice format gives the evening a sense of occasion without requiring a fixed tasting-menu commitment. For a formal anniversary dinner with full ceremony, Canlis is still the safer call.
| Venue | Awards | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Staple & Fancy Mercantile | Opinionated About Dining Casual in North America Ranked #429 (2025); Opinionated About Dining Casual in North America Ranked #448 (2024); Opinionated About Dining Casual in North America Highly Recommended (2023) | — | |
| Canlis | — | ||
| Joule | — | ||
| Kamonegi | — | ||
| Maneki | — | ||
| Walrus & Carpenter | — |
What to weigh when choosing between Staple & Fancy Mercantile and alternatives.
Book dinner Tuesday through Saturday; the kitchen runs until 23:45, which is later than most Seattle restaurants at this level. Staple & Fancy has appeared on the Opinionated About Dining Casual North America list three consecutive years (Highly Recommended in 2023, #448 in 2024, #429 in 2025), so the kitchen has a consistent track record worth trusting. It's located on Ballard Ave NW, a commercial stretch in northwest Seattle, not downtown. Closures on Monday and Sunday mean your scheduling window is narrower than it looks.
Specific menu details aren't documented in our venue data, so we won't guess at dishes or tasting notes. What the OAD ranking and Ethan Stowell's reputation signal is an Italian-focused kitchen that rewards ordering broadly rather than playing it safe. If the restaurant offers a chef's selection or family-style format, that's typically where a kitchen like this shows its range.
For a higher-stakes occasion with more ceremony, Canlis is the reference point, though it's a harder book and a different price tier entirely. Kamonegi and Joule are strong alternatives if you're open to Japanese rather than Italian. Walrus & Carpenter is the call if you want Ballard and a shorter format centered on oysters and small plates. Maneki is worth considering for history and neighborhood character over cuisine category.
Lunch only runs Thursday and Friday (12:00–16:00), so it's the harder session to plan around but often the easier reservation to land. Dinner runs Tuesday through Saturday from 18:30 to 23:45 and gives you more flexibility on day of week. If your schedule allows Thursday or Friday lunch, it's a lower-competition window at a restaurant that's earned three consecutive OAD placements.
Yes, with the right expectations. It's not a white-tablecloth destination in the Canlis mold, but its consistent OAD Casual North America ranking (up to #429 in 2025) confirms it punches above the neighbourhood-Italian category. The late closing time (23:45) makes it a practical choice for a dinner that isn't rushed. If the occasion calls for maximum ceremony, Canlis is the alternative; if it calls for a genuinely good Italian meal without that pressure, Staple & Fancy is the easier and more relaxed call.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
